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I found out that there are a bunch of people who have stopped shampooing their hair. They say that shampoo dries out your hair and causes your scalp to overproduce oil to try and compensate for the damage done by the shampoo. Conditioner is a temporary deterrent, but can’t effectively replace the oil.

I already stopped washing my face with cleansers. I use Pond’s Cold Cream now, after my shower. You smear it on, then wipe it off. The dirt comes off with it, and your face never loses any moisture. Sometimes I’ll use a bar of Dove soap while I shower, if I was out in the dirt all day, but I still use the cold cream after. My skin looks pretty good. I rarely get pimples, and when I do, they are tiny. I also feel less greasy- actually, I don’t feel greasy at all anymore.

Having seen these results in my skin after swearing off face wash, I was primed to believe that other grooming products were actually causing the problems I was using them to get rid of. I only had to hear shampoo was making my hair frizzy and unmanageable one time before I was doing internet searches and finding out what I could do.

The answer is to stop shampooing your hair. You still rinse it with water a few times a week, but you no longer put any soap in it. After about two weeks without shampoo, your scalp will stop producing as much oil, since it no longer needs to compensate for chemicals drying out your hair, and your hair stays as attractive as it was before, or becomes more visually appealing. All you have to do is brush it thoroughly every day to evenly distribute the oils, making sure to clean your brush at least once a week.

I’m on day 5 without shampoo, and my poor hair is starting to look greasy. But, in 9 days, my scalp will get acclimated and I’ll get to see if there’s any improvement to my hair. I’m excited about that.

Here’s this idea I have for what I think would be a badass miniseries (or, I guess, regular TV series- I just said miniseries because they often have better budgets for special effects) or book series. I’ve thrown this idea around in my head, but for the life of me I can’t seem to think of how to write it out for real. Or, maybe I’m just intimidated by the scope.

In any case, something I’m really preoccupied with is the idea of these … metaphysical?… bombs. Like, the bomb explodes and it changes the nature of the world. I don’t know how science would make a bomb that rips through reality, but the concept of it is so interesting to me. This series starts out with such a bomb exploding, and so does another idea that I have that I’ll have to tell you about another time.

Anyways, so the story opens on a girl and her three younger brothers (all are in their late teens to early 20’s). They live with their Grandparents who, like any decent retired couple, have a camper. The girl also has an emotionally abusive boyfriend, who has made some kind of imminent threat to her freedom. Unrelated to the boyfriend, she also suffers from panic attacks and anxiety. She sees no way out until, out of nowhere, these purple, heatless explosions fill the air. Things and people disappear where the explosions take place. Somewhere, scientists have initiated a chain reaction that destroys our reality, replacing it with an as yet intangible something else.

The sister gathers her brothers and they take the camper to get out of the city. Why don’t they take the grandparents? No fucking clue. Maybe the grandparents are away visiting family. Anyways, the girl partly sees this as an opportunity to definitely escape her evil, controlling boyfriend, and partly as a way to protect her younger brothers.

Over the course of the next few days, whole cities wink out of existence. Technology begins to fail- as in it just doesn’t work anymore. Cell phones are useless, electric lights won’t switch on. Some things still function, like batteries, but in general, things that rely on electric currents don’t work. The survivors cobble together new towns from the ashes, and the whole country takes on a Wild West type feel. The siblings, having left their home behind and believing they have nothing to go back to, try to find a new place to stay.

Obviously, the first town they stop in is not well established. It’s just a group of survivors trying to figure out how to keep surviving with what they’ve got, while a gang of hooligans sees this as their opportunity to seize control of the area. The brothers and sister decide to help out the good guys, thinking this might be their new home. This doesn’t have to be that stupendous of a venture. The main point of it is to show that the sister is a leader with a strong sense of justice and self sacrifice. The secondary point is that during this miniature civil war, it starts to come out that some people are getting magical powers. Yes, this new reality that has melded with ours is one of fantasy.

The brothers also begin showing signs of power in the next episode, but they aren’t all powers like you typically imagine, and they don’t have control over them yet. The youngest brother has the power to see the past. What? you say. That’s dumb. But I tell you it is not dumb. It means that as his powers become stronger, he will always know what anyone he meets has done in the past. He is the most accurate historian, and able to solve crimes just by meeting the criminal. He will actually be our narrator, since he is both part of the story and has an omniscient view of the events he has experienced. The middle brother has the power to slip out of memory. He can move unnoticed through a crowd. It can be like he never existed if he wishes it. The oldest brother can set fires with his mind. This is a more typical power. He can’t control it when he’s really angry, though. The sister, it appears for a long time, does not have powers. Eventually, after they settle down in one town, we discover that she does indeed have a power. She gets anxiety attacks, as I mentioned before. One day, after fighting of some anxiety (she’s stressed because the town is having some trouble with having enough provisions and fresh water to feed everyone, and she doesn’t know how to help), she begins to get a really bad panic attack. As she does, everything within a one mile radius of her location begins to wither and die. The grass turns black. The wood of the houses rots and collapses. Water becomes rancid. The people aren’t killed, nor the animals, but their food molds and their tools rust. The camper is fine. The destruction starts a hundred feet out from wherever her location is. (By the way, passive powers like the two younger siblings don’t come with unfortunate side effects, but dangerous powers like the two oldest have come with physical consequences- the fire powers leave the brother with insatiable hunger and thirst whose strength and duration depend on the fire he created, the girl’s powers come with panic and anxiety). She can’t control her powers. She never finds a way to control them, except to try to control her anxiety. Even when she does have a good grip on herself, destruction still follows her if she stays in one place too long. Therefor, she is condemned to wander, lest she harms good people. Another side effect is that she can’t be killed. She tries to kill herself to protect everyone she might hurt, but it can’t be done.

Eventually, her evil boyfriend from before is the main nemesis that they have to fight. He sucks out people’s life force (not their lives, he doesn’t kill them, he just drains everything out of him and it can take years for them to recover). It gives him the appearance of handsomeness and happiness, but when it wears off he is revealed to be progressively more ugly and miserable.

I don’t have that many more details. Basically, in my mind, the new reality creates some people who have moderate powers, and others who are like Gods. This girl, who wants nothing more than to help and protect people, finds herself cursed with powers that she can’t control that bring death and destruction to everything around her. This kind of follows her journey to becoming this kind Goddess of Death, and her attempts to find ways to stop her powers, or at least control them.

It’s a pretty grandiose scheme, on my part. I completely don’t know what to do with it.

I decided to making a cake using the Greek Yogurt + 1 cup water + 1 boxed cake mix formula.

Well, actually, I made cupcakes. Anyways, on the internet a lot of people were sad because the cake is not as fluffy this way. I didn’t want to feel sad. So, instead of a cup of water, I put a cup of cream soda. My cupcakes were delightful, in my opinion. They rose up pretty well, and they were springy. I gave some to my parents to try, and they didn’t notice anything weird about them. Success!

This is how I did it. Sorry I didn’t take pictures. The one up top is actually a different box of cake mix, because I’d already thrown the other one out. I used Devil’s Food for my cupcakes.

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup 2% Greek yogurt
1 cup cream soda

In a large bowl, I combined the cake mix and the soda. Then, I stirred in the Greek yogurt. It had a mousse-like consistency.

I lined my muffin tins with cupcake papers, and filled them to about three-quarters full. I baked them at 350 degrees Farenheit for about 25 minutes.

See? Not too bad.

Next time I would use seltzer or mineral water, because I don’t really do soda. I also would mix the cake mix with the Greek yogurt first, and add the soda last, so less bubbles get popped by the stirring.

Now that I’m in my mid-twenties, I’ve decided it would behoove me to get a Bachelor’s degree. I already have two AA’s, just from dicking around at community college, but AA’s are basically worthless if you aren’t trying to be a receptionist. I’m taking all the transferable courses I can at community college before I apply for a four-year, and right now I’m in English 1B. I am having the damnedest time writing my essays. I’ve trained myself out of over analyzing things through the years. I’ve found that, for me, too much analyzing springs the trapdoor that stands between me and a pit of depression. I also stopped trying to convince people I’m right all the time. I’ll provide the evidence, and let people draw their own conclusions. I mean, I’ll go on angry, opinion-filled rants, but I don’t expect you to believe any of what I say. I’m just blowing off steam.

Unfortunately, my being this way is not conducive to A work in English 1B. They want me to interpret things and convince people of shit. I am completely out of my element. I really thought my paper had been well-written, with strong arguments, and no loose ends, but the teacher wrote back that I needed to interpret things more and gave me a C. So, I did some revisions, and now I think my paper is gross.

Maybe you don’t know what I mean by this. Let me give you an example. A girl and a boy are talking.

Boy: My band is playing on Saturday.

Girl: I love bands. I haven’t been to a show in forever.

Boy: You should come. It’s at such-and-such a venue.

Girl: Sounds great!

Boy: It’s a $10 cover. Make sure you tell them you’re there to see band name.

Girl: Of course.

Boy leaves.

Girl: Oh em gee, he invited me to a show! That probably means he likes me! I mean, guys don’t just invite girls to shows unless they’re into them. But wait, he is playing at the show he invited me to. That means he just wants as many people as possible at the show, and I’m not special. I mean, he could want to show off his musical skills, and that’s why he invited me. He could be too shy to ask me on a real date. But he didn’t offer to put me on the guest list. He probably put his guy friends on the guest list, but that means that he cares more about his guy friends than about trying to score with me. Oh my God, not only is he not interested in dating me, he is not even interested in trying to have sex with me. Oh my God, he thinks I’m not hot. I mean, if he thought I was hot, even though the guest list was full he would have offered to pay. Oh my God, maybe he put a girl he is trying to score with on the guest list. He only thinks of me as an ugly friend. I should bring one of my guy friends to show I don’t care. Also, I can see if it makes him jealous. If he does, then maybe he does like me, and I can over analyze THAT, too.

My paper is the girl in this situation. It makes me sick. I want my paper to be the kind of girl who has that conversation and thinks, “This means I’m going to watch cute boys play instruments on Saturday,” not all of that other crap. Apparently, all of that other crap is what I need to be putting in my paper.

I guess I just need to learn to separate the two kinds of analyzing, so I can start writing really annoying papers and getting A’s.

Here are some ideas I’ve been kicking around for stories, but I’m not sure yet what to do with them. Check them out.

1. It is the zombie apocalypse. It has been for a while, so people have had time to set up compounds to keep the zombies out. There’s this girl that is just a couple months pregnant, and she begins to miscarry. She gets everything out, and is really heartbroken, of course, but then the little fetus starts to squirm around. It’s a zombie! Whaaaaaaat! I don’t know what happens after this. I think the mom would keep it. Maybe put it in a jar and keep it with her. I mean, it’s too little to have teeth. Eventually it would deteriorate, though. I guess you could argue that it’s inside the womb, so it won’t be a zombie, but in that case you’re assuming that the virus is only airborne. I say, what if you breathe it in or whatever, and it gets into the blood stream and hibernates until brain function ceases? And that’s why you don’t have to be bit to turn into a zombie when you die. Being bit just gives people a huge dose of active virus, which speeds up the process of zombifying. Fetuses get their mother’s blood up in them, I’m pretty sure, so they would have the virus in them, so it stands to reason that it could go zombie in the womb if it dies. BAM! Plausible.

This story may be in poor taste, but I think that it’s a very interesting idea. I would like to expand upon it one day.

2. So, I had this dream the other night. In it, my hubs was my boyfriend, and he had another girlfriend that he was making an engagement ring for. It was black, with a rose print. I was kind of jealous he was making her a ring, but he told me not to worry. He owed Crystal a lot, and had promised to marry her. The next morning, while I was showering away the filthy feeling of being the other woman, a thought occurred to me. What would it be like to be in a loving, committed relationship with a guy, who for some reason, felt obligated to marry a girl he wasn’t even romantic with? And my little brain started churning. What if there had been a girl that he had grown up with, and when they were 13, something happened to her. She got in an accident or discovered she had a rare disease, or something that would make it so that she could never grow up and have a normal relationship. Perhaps she became brain damaged, or had to be hooked up constantly to a machine to survive? I don’t know if accidents or diseases like this exist, but just pretend. Maybe it takes place in the past and she had some really bad Polio (that would be biting off of Dean Koontz’s “From The Corner Of His Eye”, though). Anyways, she is heartbroken. Let’s call her Megan. Megan cries and cries and tells her friend, let’s call him Todd, that the worst part is that no one will ever marry her. And, because Todd loves her (not romantically), he promises that he will. Then, he grows up. His fiancee is in a nursing home thing where she can be cared for all the time, and he lives a normal life. He finishes high school, goes to college, and meets a girl that he really loves. Let’s call her Cassandra. Todd doesn’t tell Cassandra at first that he’s going to marry Megan, and he doesn’t tell Megan about his girlfriend, because he doesn’t want her to feel like she’s holding him back from being happy. But eventually the girlfriend figures out that something is going on, and she finds out that she’s the other woman. She goes to tell the fiancee what a pig her boyfriend is, and that’s when he discovers that the fiancee is bedridden and very sick. Maybe she has hallucinations, too. I don’t know. Is there such a thing as early onset dementia? Anyways, by then Megan has intuited that there was a girlfriend, and she begs Cassandra not to leave the guy. But, she admits that planning their wedding is the best part of her life. It gives her something to be excited about, even if she knows they aren’t in love, and she wants it so badly- this one normal thing. Cassandra doesn’t know what to do. She loves Todd, but she can’t stand the idea of him being married to someone else. Eventually, she decides to stay with him, and tries to build a relationship with Megan. It’s hard, though, because she knows that Megan gets to be married to the man Cass loves. The wedding is held, and Megan politely takes the ring off when Cassandra is visiting, but Cassandra tells her not to take it off anymore. Cassandra and Todd have a kid, and Megan cries because she’ll never be able to have a baby with a man who actually loves her. And then I don’t know where it would go from there. I don’t even know if I would include all of those details. It would be a very interesting story or movie, though, in my opinion.

I’m this really special kind of person, because it takes twice the normal amount of novocaine to get me numb enough to drill. The last time I went to the dentist, he gave me this little pussy dose because he had to do a filling on each side and he didn’t want to make my whole mouth numb in case I swallowed my own tongue or choked on my saliva or something. He gave me the shot and had me sit for 15 minutes. That was just enough time for my tongue to tingle a little, and then regain all feeling. I think I ended up needing three more shots, and they could only do the fillings on one side.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me to tell them I needed more anesthetic until today. I guess I assumed they’d write it on my chart. They don’t keep record of that, though, so when he grabbed the syringe I piped up, and I got two shots instead of one. For the first time since I started getting cavities I got through the entire filling without needing more novocaine. It was awesome.

Listen to this crap. Not only did I have to go to the dentist to get two fillings today, but I’m on call for jury duty this week. I’ve had to check the courthouse website periodically through the day to see if they need me to come down, and one of my check-in times was during my appointment. I had to sit in that stupid chair waiting for the anesthetic to set in and see if I was going to have to call today’s clients and tell them they had to find someone else to take care of their kids tonight. That would have been bad news.

I was lucky though. Besides my fillings going by really fast, I managed not to be in any of the groups they yanked down to the courthouse. Fingers crossed that my luck continues. I’ve never had to serve on a jury, and I certainly don’t want to start now. Maybe if I had some savings it would be a different story.

Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever had to serve on a jury. In my impetuous youth, I tossed my jury summonses right into the recycling bin (because I’m environmentally conscious), without even opening them. I really played fast and loose with my civic duty back then. I almost threw out this one, too, but I don’t want a fine or whatever they do to scare people into showing up. I’m a more mature Kar Kar.

First, though, I have to say that writing a literary analysis paper is the reason I put off taking English 1B for so many years. I suck at literary analysis, because I can’t write an outline to save my sad little life.

On a brighter note, I was so happy to discover the Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. app in the Google Play Store the other day. It was a complete fluke that I discovered it, because I was just looking for free apps to entertain the kids I babysit when I need a mental break, and there it was. Free. But it’s a new app, and I stumbled on it just in time to have it before it gets cool. Finally, I’ll be one of the kids with a tamagotchi, while it’s still hot! I only had the knock-offs when I was young, and only once tamagotchi had started on it its way out (at my school, at least).

So, I finally hatched my first tamagotchi, on Wednesday of last week.

Here it is, sleeping. Which is kind of fitting, because it died today.

It was sickly, and needy, and poorly behaved. I let it eat too much candy, and I think that’s where I went wrong. It was only six years old, which is depressing. I hatched a new one, which I will not be feeding any snacks to. We’ll see how that goes.

My tamagotchi was so ugly, with its little stick legs and no arms, and its big old duck lips. It was always pelvic thrusting its way across the screen, smugly, waggling its butt at me as if to say, “Why, yes. I did poop an hour ago. Why, yes, I did just poop again. I’ll never stop pooping. Clean it up, so I can poop again.”

“LOOK AT MY POOP!”

Sometimes, it would call to me, just so it could refuse to eat its loaf of bread. Then I’d have to discipline it. It would harumph, and spew clouds of crankiness. Then it would behave for a little bit, but before too long it would be screaming out for me again, just so I could watch it thrust its way across the screen. Here’s a picture of how it looked when it got pissed off. I thought it was hilarious, and if I knew how to make a .gif of it, I would.

That is the best I can do for you.

It got sick every day. I had to give it two or three shots before it would get better, and it would get all happy, and I’d think, “Finally, I can have some peace.” But no. Before long it would be calling out to me once more, for no reason other than sheer selfishness. But now its dead, so… I kind of miss it.

Man, talking about 90’s toys is a nice break from having to write a literary analysis. I think I’m burnt out on that for tonight, and I’m going to rush to finish it tomorrow evening after work. Procrastinators always win, right?